La vida chapina: 03

December 14, 2024

La vida chapina: 03

view from the patio my first night in site!

December 14, 2024

Today (kamik, hoy) marks exactly one month in site which honestly feels hard to believe. Time truly has flown on by. Nevertheless, some updates about my living situation are in order. I rent this precious apartmentito on the bottom floor of my host family’s home. Alma and her daughter Paty live above me and have been the most pleasant neighbors! I share a fridge with them and once in a while, Alma makes her way downstairs, offering me atole, some soup or other food she might have prepared. Right now, I’m seated out on the patio. The drying laundry twirls and swirls around in the breeze and a vista of the town unfolds before me. Cantel, my home sweet home of the foreseeable future is a municipality of roughly 40,000 people. I live in Cantel Pueblo, or the centro, where the municipal office, health center, and big catholic church are located. Cantel has nine other centros poblados though, with one aldea melting into the other.

Work updates are few. The school year wrapped up last week, but once things are up and running again, I’ll be working at institutos in two of the aldeas, which I get to using a combination of walking and taking a bus or a pick-up truck. Apart from attending end of the year activities at one of the schools, visitng the OMNAJ (Oficina Municipal de Niñez, Adolocensia y Juventud) a few times, and observing end of the year administrative tasks at the education supervision office, my workload has been quite light. While all I and my fellow volunteers were initially concerned by the fact that we wouldn’t have a ton to do once we got to site, I have actually thoroughly enjoyed the slower pace and increased autonomy here, a reprieve from the regimented nature of our 10-week stint of Pre-Service Training.

Market day here is Sunday and I relish the opportunity to grab all the fresh produce my heart could desire–a luxury I could ill afford at the Santa Barbara Farmer’s market… I stop by the same lady’s stand each week for the majority of my haul, and each week, she gifts me a huge handful of greens, usually a mix of parsely, cilantro, celery, and apazote (still don’t really know what to do with that one). Lately, experimenting in my little kitchen has been a fount of great joy; I’ve conjured up soups, stews, pumpkin pancakes, black beans, garbonzos and even some flatbread on my estufa de mesa. My host family has an oven upstairs, so I’ve taken my baking adventures up there as well. I made pumpkin bread (shout out to the Duff family for that one!) and Christmas cookies with my host sister, spreading around that sugary holiday cheer!

Never one to be idle, I’ve used my abundance of down time to start K’iche lessons. One of the 22 Mayan languages spoken in Guatemala, K’iche finds its home in this region of the country, but due to historical discrimination against indigenous people, younger generations aren’t learning it as much anymore. Perhaps it’s because they don’t want to or would rather learn English, perhaps because their parents are scarred by their own experiences of being reprimanded for speaking their mother tongue, perhaps a combination of things. Anyhow, I certainly do not need to know this language in order to communicate with the people in my community. I suppose I am viewing this learning opportunity as an exercise in cultural valorization, holding up a mirror to the Guatemalans here, urging them to see the beauty in this slice of their heritage, joining in the clamoring of people who cannot bear to see a language die. Is a language not also a worldview, a way of understanding life? Doesn’t the world lose richness and complexity and flavor each time a tongue is cut off? On a less meta and more practical note, my homework assignments have included talking to señoras grandes in the streets in K’iche, asking them their names, how they are and where they live. I can answer all those questions too, and offer up how long I’ll be living here without much difficulty now. Chi nojimal, poco a poco, little by little.

If you haven’t picked up on this yet, life here is filled with nuanced tensions, big questions, and ethical dilemmas. Well at least it is for me. The other day, I visited my friend in the town over, and as we walked and talked, we processed our first few weeks in site–and first few months in country honestly. We really dug into dissonances we’d felt, even as we swapped stories of our sweet work partners, endearing host families, and the natural beauty that constantly surrounds us. We threw questions into the clear sky and let them hover; they danced in the breeze, not taunting, but prompting us to dive deeper. What does progress look like that is sustainable and doesn’t sacrifice indigenous cultural practices? What does “progress” even mean? If we were young Guatemalan women, how would we feel about wearing traje? What is the effect of chain fast food restaurants on local economies? Are businesses like those ever driven by any sort of ethical or moral compass? Or is profit always the bottom line? Should we give English classes? Why does an endeavour such as that feel icky and off-putting? Aren’t we here because we had the chance to learn another language? What kinds of knowledge and skills would actually be helpful for the jóvenes to acquire? We bantered and probed, but mostly, our queries remained suspended in the air, humbling us, reminding us of how much we still have to learn. I felt grounded in the here and now though as we walked down a delightful forest path clearly marked with bright blue and red arrows.

Even as my head still whirls with unanswerable questions, I’ve formed routines and hear the whispers of community and friendship rising up through the solitude. Last weekend, I played in a soccer game with a group of gals from my host family’s church and I’ve gotten to connect with the other volunteers who live in my municipality. I’ve been running lots, go to this gym about a mile away once a week, and I walk up and down hills to get to work in the aldeas. The days tend to be warm and sunny, but I bundle up under sweaters and blankets once the sun has set, drinking tea or hot cocoa as I read or write or cook to fend off the cold nights.

As the holidays loom ahead, there are mountain trails to hike, convivios to attend and paches to be made. I’ll hit the ground running in the New Year, but for now at least, it has been a gift to take my time and to re-learn that time is flexible, but precious. I find myself arriving to things late because I’ve gotten lost or don’t know the bus schedules; grace and laughter have been the most common responses. I’m working on deflecting compliments about my hair and redirecting them to hype up the girls who proffer those kind words to me. I’m learning about how hard so many people work, with both a morning and an evening shift, or working full time during the week and studying at university on the weekend. I’m often humbled by my own ineptitude–spilling my water bottle on my bed, adding 30 minutes to my journey by forgetting to get off the bus at the proper stop, locking myself out of the house from the roof, buying the wrong type of beans, etc. I try to not take myself too seriously but to be present wherever I find myself. I’ve been resonating deeply with Kate Bowler’s reminder in her soul-filling podcast: "Those small faithful actions really do add up." In that vein, I’m striving to walk through my little world with open palms, preparing to work hard and well, even as I realize I cannot do all of this on my own.

vocab
in k'iche'
kamik-today
chi nojimal-little by little
in spanish:
  convivios-gatherings
  paches-a tamale made of rice or potatoes
  traje-the traditional clothing women here wear with Corte (the skirt) and a huipil (the shirt), usually          very colorful and intricately woven
jóvenes-youth 13-18
   señoras grandes- older ladies
estufa de mesa-little table-top stove
atole-a warm drink they make here, can be different flavors